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drew Preinad, this perverse paradox.
    The priest had observed her, knew her reputation, knew of her insatiable need. The combination of facts puzzled him. Why must this child-woman gaze at them all with innocence and then go off into a Dirvan boudoir to couple with someone? And why must she be with everyone yet never offer him even a brief gaze? Surely not because of modesty or innocent infatuation. For she never looked into his eyes.
    Unanswered questions plagued him and he contemplated her from the distance of his locked mind. He became unconsciously embroiled in her—in the scent of her, in the way her rotund lips pouted, the cherubic firmness of her cheeks. It enraged him to think that this innocent with the voice of a skylark regularly allowed old and young lechers to fondle her, and to stain her sweet intimate parts with their spilled seed.
    It had become vivid in his imagination. He imagined her moving with other men—for yes, he, the stoic, had seen all there is to see of carnality, a thousand times more than what was locked away in the filthy pages of this erotene book. He had witnessed seasons of it in Dirvan , indifferent, clinical, an untouched outsider. And yet, after a while, he would come to see himself in their place, straining, fondling her silver softness. . . .
    But no!
    Preinad Olvan shut the heavy volume with a snap, his fingers trembling in anger. Unless the New Rainbow dawned, he would remain thus, like a rock, immovable. He was a virgin with the innards of ice. That would persist .
    And yet, she, Cyanolis Vaeste, was always there, permeating his thoughts, chipping away at him.
    Who would prevail?
     
    * * *
     
    “ R ainbow, therefore,” said Nilmet Vallen, “is a state of mind. It is too intangible to be anything else.”
    “ Uhm—well. I may not be able to express my arguments as finely as you, but I don’t agree. Besides, why do you always sound so sure, as if you know something? I mean, I can’t tell you why I think the way I do,” retorted Jirve Lan, the innkeeper, his voice warming with irritation. “Your move, by the way.”
    Nilmet only shrugged, calmly, patiently, kind-eyed, and placed a small stone game piece upon the second of the eight cells on the board, next to the first, Andelas . It was Dersenne , the Radiant Tilirreh of yellow , oddly relevant to their discussion, for his were all things sacred; his, the realm of religion and spiritual philosophy. The figurine of a man with long flowing hair was finely carved, and yet the face was as smooth and blank as an egg. All of the game pieces were thus, faceless.
    The board was circular, old polished oak. The cells, lined up in a ring dance along the perimeter, were round indentations in the wood, as if someone had taken a large dahr coin and pressed it hard into the board until it sank and left its outline in relief. The object of the game was to move all the pieces forward until all the Tilirr were on the board in order and the place of Andelas was occupied. It was a game for two, because each opponent moved pieces in the opposite direction, and eliminated the opponent’s pieces by blocking, surrounding, and then appropriating them.
    Apparently this was a new game round, for there were only two pieces in the running, while the rest of the tiny stone Tilirr were still in their throne cells in the middle of the board.
    The two men were sitting at an empty dinner table in the large common room of the White Roads Inn, bathed in orange glow.
    “ . . . you must understand, there is a tact, a certain kind of tact, to cooking—” came from the back room, the large kitchen. “A true honest-to-goodness cook is in tune with the food, always! In tune with the smell and wetness of it, with the texture, and the amount of fire. Everything must be in perfect sensory balance, in absolute accordance to everything else—”
    “ Now, that,” said Jirve Lan, lightening, “is our own house philosopher. You don’t need to know any fine